albatrosses take you home 

you fell asleep on the train ride home
& as you tell my this i think of how
albatrosses can sleep while flying.
i imagine a whole flock of albatrosses 
outside the train window like guardian angels.
everyone is falling asleep around me.
everyone is discovering surfaces:
a patch of grass, a friend's carpet, 
a corner of dusk. outside i'm jealous
of all the people & their slacken bodies--
how they can just kneel down on the sidewalk 
& dip into slumber. the truth is though 
that albatrosses don't travel in flocks.
they travel alone. they fly far out 
above the water & that's where they 
sleep in the air. their bodies carry them.
wings pumping behind their eyes. you fell asleep
on the train & were woken up by an albatross.
you don't tell me this-- it's just something
i know because it happened to me too.
your face pressed up against the window.
my face pressed up against the window.
the instances happening in tandem. 
on the other side of the glass, 
landscape whirled like
movie frames. the albatrosses danced 
& laughed at us on our train. their bodies
snipping through the air while we are bound
by the lines of a road. how i draw a line
from home to where you are & wish i could
walk it like a tight rope. even as you tell me
you are falling asleep. even as i listen 
i am turning into a bird again.
i need you to open the window & let me out
but you aren't sure what to do. 
our house turns into a train & we're rushing past
station after station. the last station 
was home & were not stopping. we're going
to rush off the edge of the island
& never come back. we're going to rush
into the ocean the albatrosses trust.
salt water lifting our bodies. 
feathers across my skin. this is 
a way of me confessing that
i'm scared you're turning into 
a great white bird. i want to be 
the only great white bird in this relationship.
albatrosses only lay one egg. round.
i see the egg floating in the water.
sitting on an open seat in the train. 
you woke up right before 
our station. you gathered you bags 
& stepped off onto the platform.

collage of finger prints.

he touched my shoulder. thumb against
the back of me neck. brushing hands with
a man through a knot of bodies. 
everyone tangled & touching & 
taking pieces of skin. pinching
my ear lob & ringing my collar bone
like a door bell. i'm peeling them off--
each trace each stroke. i want to look at them.
i want a photo album of hands that have
pressed into me. i don't remember much
about voices or teeth but i remember the fingers
of everyone who's ever kissed me.
there was julian with his thin digits
& the way he would rake his nails
across my wide open back & afterwards
we would stand in his kitchen with 
our bare feet cold against the tiles floor.
we would snack on apples or frozen yogurt
& his fingers would hold the fruit 
or the spoon with less hunger 
than how he held me. i have to admit
i love to be dug into. to be scraped open
i want to be the ledge you hang your wants.
i want to be eroded. sean who 
never cleaned his nails. eating pizza
with him on his deck. lily who 
pulled her fingers across me like tall grass.
eric who moved his hands in circles
across bare skin when he didn't know
what to do or say. i felt like
i was being stirred. mia with their
index finger tracing a line from 
shoulder to shoulder. a trapeze.  
hand around my throat pressing to hard.
grabbing my ass too hard--
finger prints leaving small mazes 
on my body which i have yet to enter--
little labyrinths of pleated skin.
i am tired of hands & of remembering them
& remembering who entered & who left &
caring where he puts his hands now
& how she eats an apple-- i never saw her
eat an apple. if i never touched anyone again
would i miss it or would i feel 
like a forest? a drying canvas?
i press my own thumb into my chest--
rub in circles as if to smudge something out.
i lay on the floor & see the prints 
glowing neon. they move across me--
phantom foot prints. i close my eyes
& when i open them the marks are gone. 
i'm just a body. just a body.
just a body.

an elegy to the plants i've killed 

if i had plants now i would tell them secrets.
i would crouch down & bury my mouth
in their leaves-- press my lips to 
the faces of orchids. watch their stalks 
tremble with words. watch them try 
to not tell each other. all the plants
i've ever had have died & sometimes i think
it's because i never talked to them.
could they have died of loneliness?
i took myself to the botanical gardens 
& there was an exhibit where
you could listen to plants. 
i put on headphones 
& heard their muffled singing--
clear in through the headphones. one fern
singing jazz-- a flower humming 
a nursery rhyme. i wondered why
my plants never showed me their voices
or if that wasn't their job--
if i should have sought them out more.
i ambled around the gardens speaking to plants 
& laughing about how strange it seemed.
sitting at the foot of 
a bare cherry blossom trying to
talk it into blooming. telling the tree
stories of humans playing
in the snow. was she sad about
being stuck in one place? i got her to 
bud & open one flower & i stuck
it in my hair. i thought about 
all my plants & how i watched them 
slowly fade. the last plant
was a small pinkish orchid
in a too small pot. i wished
i would have taken my headphones
& plugged them into the dirt.
what would the flower have said?
would it have just been screaming?
a farewell? a gentle crying?
i go to the green houses to ask
other orchids what mine might
have said to me if i would have spoken
to it. i ask & ask & ask &
the orchids cover their faces
with their leaves-- too shy to 
look at me. i beg them
to explain what my orchid might have felt--
if it was me who killed it but 
they won't move. they go silent 
for me. i keep walking till i reach
the lemon tree & i tell the tree
how much i want to live somewhere
breathing-- how sometimes the city feels
is a knot of dead plants. we're climbing
all over to chew on the sweet rotting bits.
i chew on a square of sidewalk outside
the gardens. the leg of a tree
digs in to the path & i kiss 
the tree's knee. i tell the tree
that i want to have a word with it.
i speak to the bark--to the woven-like patterns.
i admit i feel guilty but i also wish
my plants would have spoken to me.
how ridiculously obvious our wants can be.
i ask the tree to show me his voice 
but he stays silent & i take the train how
to a room where there are no plants.
outside a thin tree grows 
from the sidewalk. 

wall ball 

dad & i look for tennis balls.
in the grass by the high school courts,  
the grass grows untamed
& spiraling-- brushes our ankles. 
we're looking for something to throw
hard & fast against the steep brick wall
of the school. it was a game we played
for years, riding our bikes 
down the hill to the school 
& laying them in the gravel parking lot. 
dad's bike had orange detailing 
& mine had blue. 
i forget when this begins or ends--
when we first went, got down on our knees
to look for tennis balls 
or when the last time was that we
threw the balls back to the grass
& left without a word. i can't remember
a single thing he said to me or 
that i said to him only the movements 
we made together in early fall 
when the leaves were just blushing,
only a few taking the trek down 
to become a part of the soil.
i wonder how long it takes
for a tennis ball to decompose so 
i search online, alone in my room
where there is no grass or dads 
or high schools. 450 years.
i imagine returning to our spot
for that long & picking up those
same tennis balls-- throwing them
until they collapsed into themselves
& after that just throwing the rind
like an already-devoured fruit. 
or, maybe we could have planted 
the tennis ball & see it grow into 
a tree of tennis balls 
all fresh & bright like we'd 
never known. there's something
to the action of throwing, the muscles
in the arm that want to, need to,
force objects through the air.
here's dad tossing the tired dull sphere
harder & harder & me watching,
living through his motion.

vanishing points

i became obsessed with 
how cavernous an image could go.
i began to see lines 
trailing from every object
like strings holding a scene in place.
we learned about dimensions
in high school drawing class
where the teacher had us all draw 
the same room.
the work of rulers. 
planting the vanishing point
in the background 
like a seed. 
the room was to have 
a sofa & a bed.
simple shapes. she told us that everything
at the end of the day was 
a simple shape. 
i drew a portrait
of myself in cubes.
a vanishing portrait.
i clutched my sketch pad & a pencil--
took them everywhere
though i never drew what i saw.
i practiced drawing that same room.
scribbling to mark 
the point everything fades into. 
i started to look for that point
at the end of roads. 
i watched everyone
walk away into it 
& cars drive recklessly
into nowhere at all. 
all the while i worked to draw line after line
connecting them back to the pit.
i curled up in the road some nights
& tried to be someone else's 
vanishing point.
in drawing class we moved on to 
new topics each week. we all made 
the same pastel beach 
& the same water color sky 
& the same sketch of a thumb.
there was something wonderful 
about repetition. about replicating
an image across a dozen hands & papers.
all those other people though
they could move on from the vanishing point
while more & more i became obsessed
with plucking it-- reaching for it
like a fruit. holding its softness
in my hand. as if maybe i could outrun 
the stretch of sight & pin myself down 
to the spot. i'd run up & down
the gravel road behind my house
but could never catch it. 
over the years fell in love
with so many boys 
to make vanishing points of--
to tie strings to & draw a kind of life. 
in high school i was bent on 
knowing the source 
of my own diminishing. 
drawing the room i tell a boy
to hold still until i'm ready 
to walk into him.

everything i can't tell you

i've never ridden a horse 
but i have a memory of doing so.
we're smacking across on pavement.
bareback. my legs holding onto
the warm animal's torso. 
the only thought in my head is
that i have to get away from you. 
horses are beautiful machines--
they suggest muscle & freedom 
as if one day i could grow myself hooves & 
nothing my fingers did would have to matter.
i want no one to love me the same way
they love other humans. i want to be loved
like an animal. the horse
is terrified of cars. he screams the way
only horses can. the streets are
mostly empty aside from those few
dwindling vehicles that never go home.
i cling to the mane. coarse & black.
my phone is ringing so i throw it 
into the moon where it skips & leaves
a scar. i am trying so hard to be 
beautiful all the time for you. 
maybe this is a memory 
of everything i haven't done--
how only inside myself have i let 
the horse do what only horses can do.
somewhere outside this city there 
are fields & i am not aiming for them.
there is water that offers sinking--
an ocean full of boat-lights swaying.
the horse wants everything for me.
wants me to be a boy but 
i seep into a mesh of fears--
a shroud flung over the shoulder
of a monster. i am easily taken away
by a strong wind. all my blood 
a kind of fabric. on the horse
i am tying myself into knots
& telling the animal to go faster.
gunshots come out of my mouth.
i try to swallow them before
they come out. in this memory 
we reach an impossible tree
with fruit of all different kinds 
hanging from the branches.
i ask the horse if i am dead
& the horse doesn't respond
because he's a horse. i feed him
& he sleeps & i lay down
in the scraggled grass. this is not
a parable. this is everything i want
right now & everything i can't 
tell you.

i'm carving you an ice hotel

not like the one that's built each year 
in quebec with its vast blue hallways & tunnels
& beds of ice draped with furs. 
i'm making yours 
out of individual ice cubes
from the white tray in the fridge.
each a little rounded rectangle.
i'm using tap water & filling each reservoir
considering what kind of windows 
these might make & if the sun will 
destroy it all before you even wake up.

i stay up all night to make your ice hotel.
let me explain, i'm doing this entirely
for myself. the brevity comforts me.
i like the idea of a structure dying each year.
i watch videos online of the ice hotel
melting & the rooms shrinking down 
to nothing. in my head
i imagine all guests gathered outside.
a kind of funeral. watching the room 
they slept in turn to water again.

our ice hotel will last even less time.
the heat from my fingers destroys it
as i work. 
here is your chandelier.
here is your love seat. 
here is your television of ice 
& here is where i want to lay with you
while the blankets turn to water over us.

each year they go back. bring trucks 
of ice blocks. lay a new foundation
of ice. they touch the freezing walls 
& see their breath turn vapor.
in their great fur jackets 
they take photographs of every single room.

why does my memory write itself 
on ice? i took pictures of you 
& you laid out beautiful for me. 
i can't remember what i wanted 
when i took them. i just see your body
& how your skin was even becoming ice.

a fear of melting. i collect jelly jars 
to keep out hotel in for once it's water again.
i tell you to look & you love it
& your walk around. cheeks blushed 
from the chill. i don't want to 
kiss you but know i should.

i want to put the whole hotel
in my mouth with you in it. 
it's not that i want to harm you 
but i want to feel you melt.
i am a terrible red open oven.
why must we be so warm?

in the aftermath the mud is a form
of weeping. we slosh through.
our boots get stuck over & over.
i am a cruel architect.
i want you to come back each year
& see what i'll make for you.
i want only to make wonderful rooms
that collapse.

tai chi in bryant park starts at 7am 

i watch them each morning all summer.
i pick a wobbly green metal table.
if this were a movie maybe people would
move all as one. a body of water. a current.
but the people are haphazard. out of sync.
their eyelids turn into petals & fall off
in a great gust that brings me back to life.
they are trying to pose on one leg--
trying to raise leg to chest. trying to 
hold two arms out. these motions seem simple
until they're slowed down. how some people
move too fast & others linger on the motion.
the fountain amuses itself & it bothers me
how clear the water is. no water 
in the city looks like that. i want
to step inside. i want to tai chi
in the water. soak my nice office-going clothes.
there's a book store a block away 
not open yet. everyone has their own coffee.
one woman in the tai chi mob closes her eyes
& gets down on her knees. she becomes 
a holly bush-- all prickly. sturdy leaves.
no one else seems to notice. they continue
their movements. i consider what plant
in the park i would like to become. 
certainly not a tree. they have so much 
responsibility. something aesthetic.
a cluster of peonies nestled between bushes.
or maybe the vines that crawl across the back wall
of the library. how do they decide when 
to stop? does their motion calm them?
i've never known a soothing movement.
my limbs are wooden & carry me
all the up 6th avenue every single day.
my clothing sticks to my skin.
we're all in humid july's mouth. 
i am nothing like the people practicing
tai chi if for no other reason 
than i've decided i can't be one of them. 
if i joined in--if i moved like that 
maybe i would never leave. 
maybe i would put my whole blue backpack 
into the garbage.
float my shoes like little boats 
in the foundation. maybe i would kneel down
like that woman. feel my eye lids flutter away 
as petals. my limbs becoming tangled bush.
skin, a chorus of holly leaves. 
a great rustling where there was 
once bones. sometimes as i watch them
i feel like crying. 
at first i thought it was because
i wanted to have that time too-- whatever time
these humans had given themselves.
time dedication to articulating their bodies.
hands curved as crescent moon. 
feet as meat hooks. now just recalling 
those moments i think i want to cry
for simpler reasons. what it looks like
to attempt to follow someone.
how two men up front were templates 
for all these other bodies.
how the fountain was clear &
the water would have been cool
if i'd have wadded in.

hunting season

a gun shot 
hands clapped hard together.
red from the impact. 
there are deer everywhere. 
they get on their knees to try & hide
beneath all of our houses. 
knees popping snapping backwards.
a tree snapping in half.
where i'm from everyone hunts. 
everyone puts on bright orange suites
so they can see each other in the woods.
so they don't shoot each other.
that's not true though some people 
dress like the trees. 
they wear in camouflage. 
the woods stand like a crowd of people.
the gun shots come from the crowd--
from between shoulder blades & purses. 
i can hear each vibrate.
i eat onion grass on the back porch
& walk bare foot even though
it's october & the ground is chilled.
cold dirt is the most welcoming.
everyone is going to be eating deer soon
& turning it into jerky. 
in school other children 
offer each other fragments of meat.
dark tough meat. dried by butchers.
i will eat a piece. first pulling
the strings of muscle apart. woven with salt.
chewing. mashing the pink back 
into the jerky. peppered & almost sweet.
i think of the meat when i pace back & forth
in the grass. i see deer. they are all 
trying to be small. some lay on the ground 
behind my garage & others stand behind 
out pine tree. i tell them it's okay
that i won't ever eat parts of them again.
they don't believe me which is
what hurts the most.
i wanted to know what my meat 
would taste like if it was pressed like theirs.
i put on an orange suite--
pointed my finger in the shape of a gun
to make them fearful of me. i don't know
why i did this. 
it was cruel & i felt small
& they felt small. i got on 
my knees. i hear a pop. 
guns talking
in the thick woods. 
the woods chattering.
the deer asking me to lead them indoors--
to make brothers & sisters out of them.
i explained i couldn't do that--
there wasn't enough room & plus
they might have ticks. each tried
to become a shingle. each tried to become 
a branch. each prayed to be orange 
or camouflage like us.  
the cold dirt was aloud.
i taught them how to cry.

taking apart 

i bought heads of lettuce
for few weeks in a row instead of 
the pre-chopped up bagged kind of lettuce.
i carried them home from Stop & Shop
like infants-- cradling them
& inspecting their green folds.
i imagine them in a huge field where
all of them stand side by side.
what did they talk about?
using the word "head" to describe something
so loose. so easily pulled apart.
it's so true & in the kitchen i asked
each leaf to teach me how i might
pull myself apart similarly. i washed
the heads in the sink & thought of my mom
& the old farm. mom holding up
a purple-evergreen head of lettuce
& asking me to look at how beautiful it was.
in the kitchen she'd work one head
at a time--washing the lettuce
in the big silver bowl. in the garage 
there was a faded blue baby bathtub &
i'd ask her if she washed me in it
& she would say yes. smell of baby shampoo.
a lathering. i wanted to wash my lettuce
like that--like rich foam but that's 
not how you wash a vegetable. 
maybe they weren't lettuce--
maybe they were in fact children each
buried in leaves. it feels important now
to mention these were heads of romaine
& that as i took them apart the leaves go
smaller & smaller towards the center.
shaped more & more like canoes.
i float those canoes in the sink &
the sink over flows to i lay on those canoes
until they float all the way down the hall.
the heads of lettuce have no feet
to scurry like children should. they have no hands
to leaving finger prints on windows. 
they have no stomach to lay on the floor.
i tear the leaves to shreds. this is how
they become more manageable. 
my mother did the same-- ripping at
the purple lettuce's ruffles as if she was
destroying a dress. in the end there is
at least something to be eaten.
a process to complete again. i wipe
my hands on my thighs. i blot
the torn lettuce with a towel
to dry up the water.